Lifeboat Foundation

Multidisciplinary team of materials physicists and geophysicists combine theoretical predictions, simulations, and seismic tomography to find spin transition in the Earth’s mantle.

The interior of the Earth is a mystery, especially at greater depths (660 km). Researchers only have seismic tomographic images of this region and, to interpret them, they need to calculate seismic (acoustic) velocities in minerals at high pressures and temperatures. With those calculations, they can create 3D velocity maps and figure out the mineralogy and temperature of the observed regions. When a phase transition occurs in a mineral, such as a crystal structure change under pressure, scientists observe a velocity change, usually a sharp seismic velocity discontinuity.

In 2,003 scientists observed in a lab a novel type of phase change in minerals — a spin change in iron in ferropericlase, the second most abundant component of the Earth’s lower mantle. A spin change, or spin crossover, can happen in minerals like ferropericlase under an external stimulus, such as pressure or temperature. Over the next few years, experimental and theoretical groups confirmed this phase change in both ferropericlase and bridgmanite, the most abundant phase of the lower mantle. But no one was quite sure why or where this was happening.

China has unveiled the crew for its Shenzou 13 mission to the country’s brand new Tiangong space station, including the first female astronaut to venture to the outpost, the South China Morning Post reports.

Wang Yaping will spend six months on board the space station — the country’s longest crewed mission to date — alongside astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu. She could also become the first female Chinese astronaut to complete a spacewalk.

“After eight years of relentless effort, I am going back to space again,” Wang told reporters on Thursday, as quoted by SCMP. “Students, let me know what you want to learn this time. I will prepare a great lecture for you in orbit.”

Duke professor becomes second recipient of AAAI Squirrel AI Award for pioneering socially responsible AI.

Whether preventing explosions on electrical grids, spotting patterns among past crimes, or optimizing resources in the care of critically ill patients, Duke University computer scientist Cynthia Rudin wants artificial intelligence (AI) to show its work. Especially when it’s making decisions that deeply affect people’s lives.

Continue reading “A ‘New Nobel’ — Computer Scientist Wins $1 Million Artificial Intelligence Prize” »

Asteroids seem to be a treasure trove for future space miners. 😃

Some are full of precious metals worth many trillions of dollars and with more copper, nickel and cobalt than the entirety of our metal reserves.

The two mineral deposits measure over a mile wide and could be targets for future space mining.

Continue reading “Rare asteroids near Earth may contain precious metals worth $11.65 trillion” »

Plus: The biggest Twitch hack, an iOS zero day, and more of the week’s top security news.

Nature waded through the literature on the coronavirus — and summarized key papers as they appeared.

The U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) issues a warning about cyber threats targeting wastewater and water systems.

AllBlock ad-blocking plugins for Chrome and Opera were discovered injecting advertisements into Google search results pages.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) is tracking more than 270 government-backed threat actors from more than 50 countries.